Elizabeth whipped out her phone as Derek tromped off with the guard. She should have called this in before now, but she hadn’t known what to say. Hey, Gordon, this bartender at this strip club saw this guy who might be friends with someone who might be Zahid Ameen, and we followed him out to this shipping terminal where he works and watched him . . . what? Pick up a suspicious person? For all she knew, Matt Palicek was giving a coworker a ride home. And maybe the bartender was mistaken and Palicek didn’t even know Ameen. And maybe this was nothing more than a wild-goose chase.
Except that they happened to be standing beside the Houston Ship Channel, which was on their short list of terrorist targets. And it was the middle of the night. And Derek was right—something was very wrong here.
She got Gordon’s voice mail and left an urgent message. Then she called Lauren.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“At the Pussycat. Why?”
“I can’t explain it all now, but keep your eyes peeled for anything unusual, and add a vehicle to your list: a black Avalanche. If you see one anywhere near there, get the plate and . . .” Her voice trailed off as Derek emerged from the maintenance building, followed by the guard.
“Elizabeth? You there?”
“Lemme call you back.” She disconnected. “What are you doing?”
Derek set a scuba tank on the dock beside her and dropped a coil of rope at her feet. “Going in.”
“Going in the water?”
He crouched down and started unlacing his boots. “That hull could be rigged.”
“But—” Her heart skittered. “You can’t just jump in there.”
“Why not?”
She shot a look at the guard, who was now on his cell phone, no doubt calling his supervisor’s supervisor’s supervisor. This situation was spinning out of control, and she hadn’t even reached Gordon.
Derek hefted the tank onto his back, then clamped a buckle around his waist and jerked it tight.
“But what if you find something?” she asked.
“Like an IED?”
“Yes, like an IED! What if it’s rigged?”
“I’ll unrig it. That’s what we do with IEDs on boats. ’Specially boats filled with flammable liquids, ’specially when they’re moored near giant tanks of crude oil. You want to see this place fireball?”
“But—”
“Relax.” He squeezed her arm. “It might be nothing.”
* * *
For the second time in a week, he found himself in pitch-black water, feeling his way around the hull of a ship. He worked bow to stern, moving with less speed than usual, because the only fins in the maintenance closet had been about six sizes too small. The water was like a bathtub. Given the sediment in the water, visibility was nonexistent, so he moved by feel, hyperalert for any debris that might be lurking beneath him, waiting to slice up his feet. He knew that while the main channel was definitely kept dredged and clear, the inlets weren’t nearly as high a priority. Without water, this whole place would be a barnacle-covered junkyard.
Derek felt the curve of the ship’s skin. He was nearing the propeller. The prop was a high-probability area to plant a device, so he slowed his search.
Nothing.
He adjusted his regulator and continued searching. His gut was churning, and his sixth sense was gnawing at him, and he knew without a doubt that the man who’d caught a ride in that Avalanche had been up to something. Had he planted a bomb in the channel? But why target a channel when there was a perfectly good explosive right here? One that would make a hell of a fire show on the six o’clock news, too. The media’s motto was “If it bleeds, it leads,” but if it freaking exploded, get ready. It would not only lead, it would be on continuous replay for the next two weeks.
Derek did one last pass, and still nothing. He kicked to the surface and spied Elizabeth pacing the dock as she talked on her phone. She rushed over.
“What’d you find?”
He shoved his mask up. “Nothing so far. Throw me that line, would you?”
She glanced down at the coil of rope and pulled the end to a free cleat. He watched her secure the line as he swam over.
“Their chief of operations is on his way,” she said, “along with the fire chief.” She tossed him the line as he reached the dock.
“Someone needs to find the Avalanche,” he said.
“We’re working on it.”
The bulkhead was covered with razor-sharp barnacles, so he climbed the rope hand over hand to avoid trashing his feet. Water gushed from his jeans as he stood on the dock.
“Gordon’s en route.”
He looked around. “What’s he doing?” He nodded at the security guard, who was dragging a wooden barricade over to a marshy area beside the road.
“I found some footprints in the mud, while you were under.”
“Fresh ones?”
“Looked fresh to me,” she said. “Our crime-scene techs can take a look, maybe get something useful.”
Derek surveyed the swamp grass. He looked from the water to the spot on the gravel road where the Avalanche had picked up the passenger.
“Shit,” he muttered.
“What?”
He crossed the dock. He followed the road a few paces and stepped off the gravel into the marsh. Mud oozed between his toes as he looked out at the water.
“Fuckin’ A.”
“Derek, what is it?”
He waded back in.
* * *
Elizabeth scanned the surface, searching for any sign of him.
“He still down there?”
She turned to look at the guard and nodded.
Another truck sped up to the dock and skidded to a stop. There were four now, all with the same private security company logo on the door. They’d also been joined by the chief operations officer for Oil Trans, who’d pulled up in a fancy white Suburban and was now standing on the dock talking on his cell phone. No one seemed happy with the fact that an FBI agent and a diver from an as-yet-unnamed law-enforcement agency had suddenly started snooping around their boat dock.
Elizabeth squinted at the water. She checked her watch. Her heart pounded as she stared out at the shimmery surface. He’d been under almost half an hour. What could possibly be taking so long? With every minute that ticked by, her dread increased.
A dark shape on the rippled surface. Was it . . . ?
She squished her way through the grass as he rose out of the water like some sort of swamp monster.
“What’d you find?” Water swirled around her ankles as she trudged out to meet him.
He raked his hair out of his face, and the look in his eyes made her stomach clench.
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
He glanced over her shoulder. “Your guys here yet?”
“They’re on their way.”
“Tell them to double-time it.”
“Is it a bomb?”
“It’s a sub.”
She stared at him. “A what?”
“Like an SDV, only smaller. Given the size and shape, I’m guessing it’s from Mexico or maybe Central America. Could be Colombian.”
She waded closer until she was knee-deep in water as she tried to get her brain to process the words. “What are you talking about? What’s an SDV?”
“It’s like an SDV. A SEAL delivery vehicle used to insert covertly into enemy territory. But this boat’s actually bigger.”
“Are you telling me you found a submarine out there?”
Water glistened on his face as he looked down at her. “A narco sub, yes. Probably big enough for a three-man crew and a shit ton of cargo, all of it long gone at this point. Damn thing’s been scuttled.”
Her mind reeled. “But . . . how the hell would someone get a submarine up the Houston Ship Channel?”
“Wrong question, Liz.” He clamped a wet hand on her shoulder. “What you need to worry about is why.”
Chapter Fourteen
Torres picked up on the first ring.
“I need an update on Palicek,” Elizabeth told him.
“This place is dead. Nothing happening, and it’s been almost an hour.”
“Not even a drive-by?”
“Zip,” Torres reported. “And we’ve got four unmarked units staked out around his apartment complex. If anyone did a drive-by, we’d have seen it.”
So where had Palicek taken his mystery passenger?
Elizabeth glanced around the waterfront, bustling with emergency workers. Firefighters and Coast Guard personnel stood in knee-deep water, watching as the narco sub was slowly pulled ashore by a huge winch attached to an industrial-sized tow truck. The vessel was black, bullet-shaped, and about forty feet long. Made of fiberglass, it would be practically invisible to both radar and sonar.
Gordon stood beside the submarine now, talking to the Coast Guard captain. He caught her eye and broke away from his conversation.